


a lily for my love

by whalersandsailors



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, During Canon, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Soulmarks, Soulmates, terror bingo 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22236565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalersandsailors/pseuds/whalersandsailors
Summary: Solomon never thought that soul-signs were real, and the stories he heard about them made soulmates sound more like a prison sentence than any fairy tale romance. It is not until he finds a soul-sign on the skin of a very dear friend that he realizes their importance, as well as their undoing.
Relationships: Cornelius Hickey/Sgt Solomon Tozer, Lt Edward Little/Sgt Solomon Tozer, Sgt Solomon Tozer & Pte William Heather
Comments: 19
Kudos: 53
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	a lily for my love

**Author's Note:**

> written for the Terror Bingo prompt **_soulmarks_**

Were it not for its peculiar shape, Solomon might have thought it a bruise. It certainly resembles one, colored deep mauve with yellowed edges, located in the center of Heather’s chest, hidden partially by wiry coils of hair.

The longer Solomon looks at it, he can discern a shape, the lines far too delicate to be the work of a seaman tattooist. It looks like a flower; a wide-petaled lily with a pale burst beneath its stem like many darting freckles, each varying in shades of pink. Entranced, Solomon traces his finger along its outline, marveling at the source of such a beautiful image.

The flower is as outwardly delicate as Heather is outwardly stout, but the imbalance of it suits him. Or so Solomon believes, remembering Heather for his amiable nature and quiet assurance. He was a favorite among both the marines and the AB’s, and _Terror_ ’s boys Golding and Evans had latched onto Heather like goslings to their mother.

He knows not if Heather has a sweetheart back home. In all their shared confidence and smiles, they rarely spoke of family. It was not as though Heather purposely avoided the subject, but rather, it was never something either man needed, when they were enjoying the pleasure of each other’s company.

(Solomon’s own wife lay silent, and undisturbed, in a small plot of green a few miles out of Oxbridge. Flowers much like the one on Heather’s chest likely sprout from her plot now.)

Memory catches up with Solomon eventually, and he realizes, as Heather lay unmoving in the sick bay hammock, that this was not the first time Solomon has seen his chest bare.

The previous time, there was no flower branded on Heather’s chest.

***

The markings, like birthmarks or port wine stains, are more a nuisance than a source of romance.

Solomon would keep himself from huffing and rolling his eyes every time his sisters put their heads together, discussing in their pitchy whispers the _significance_ of a mark’s location, its design, its size, how quickly it appears; all the important factors leading to one’s soulmate.

Most of it was hogwash, childish drivel to fill penny novels and the empty heads of stupid girls awaiting her chance of everlasting, blissful passion.

For many years, Solomon doubted the existence of any such marks, suspecting that soul-signs — as the gossip rags stupidly called them — were manufactured by the same con artists who peddle divinations and love potions. He has seen countless married couples, their skin as bare and unsullied as newborn babes. Even his parents, who hold a diffident but precious affection for one another, have no trace of markings sprouted anywhere upon their persons.

It was not until a scandal shook the neighborhood during his young adult years that Solomon realized that soul-signs are very real and quite devastating.

The wife of a household developed a peculiar starburst upon her right cheek. She took means to cover it, with powder or bonnets, but when her husband returned home from abroad, with no coordinating mark upon his own cheek, the truth became abundantly clear to everyone in the neighborhood.

Immediately, the husband sent her away to live with family, and he sold their house shortly thereafter. As much as the public thirsted for details of the affair and the identity of the wife’s mysterious lover, nothing more came of it, save some peace in Solomon’s home as his sisters finally stopped talking about wanting a soul-sign of her own.

***

The conversation grows boisterous as each of the Marines scrambles to share of his own conquests, the topic of sweethearts triggered by Wilkes mentioning a redheaded girl in a shop that he had begun to court. Despite the rather innocent nature of his infatuation, his brothers in arms were happy to supply the table with an abundance of raucous stories of a night on the town or a doxy with a legendary tongue.

Solomon notices Heather growing still when a round of laughter drowns out Wilkes’s objections. He tries to get Heather’s attention quietly, bumping their shoulders together, but the five of them are crowded so tightly around the narrow table that he does not notice the nudge.

He’s not married, that much Solomon knows. Nor is he the prudish type, or least Solomon thinks not. The two of them have seen each other nearly naked, early in the voyage, when it was still warm enough to fully undress and to bathe, and Heather has mentioned in passing visiting his fair share of brothels on land.

After a second bump, he is able to catch Heather’s eye, but his attention is dragged away when Wilkes brings up the topic of soul-signs; as though he earnestly believed them to be the end-all of a perfect relationship.

Hedges scoffs. “What about them? They’re not real.”

Wilkes puffs up, his cheeks pink in indignation, but it is Heather who speaks next.

“Of course they’re real,” he declares, the conviction in his voice strong.

Solomon turns to him in surprise, to find Heather staring intently at Hedges. Hedges withers under the intense scrutiny, but Wilkes leans eagerly over the table, the relief in his posture almost comical.

“You’ve seen them?” he asks.

Heather looks down at the table, his voice softening.

“Yes,” he answers. “My parents had them.”

“Plenty of people are happy without them,” Solomon says before he can stop himself, his mind racing as he remembers the scandal back home, or of his own late wife, whose skin remained porcelain white through their short marriage. “Even if they are real, they’re not important.”

In his periphery, Solomon sees Heather turn to him, but he keeps his attention on Wilkes. Whether it is pity or censure on Heather’s face, Solomon would rather not subject himself to it.

Across the table, a thoughtful frown crosses Daly’s face.

“Yeah,” he says, grabbing Wilkes’s shoulder and nodding to Heather. “I’ve seen them, too.”

Heather says nothing, and Solomon frowns at Daly. He ignores the silent warning as he leans close to Wilkes, as if to confide a great secret.

Wilkes's voice vibrates. “You’ve seen one? In person?”

“Oh, yes.” Daly pauses, casting his eyes to the ceiling as he works to remember. “A pretty lass. Said she’d never been with someone before me. But then I knew the truth when she had a massive cock on the whole of her back—”

He barely finishes the sentence when Wilkes shoves his hand off, and Daly falls against the bulkhead, clutching his stomach as he cackles. Hedges starts to admonish Daly without any real heat in his voice, grinning widely as well. Heather hunches, looking ready to walk away at any moment.

“Whoever her soulmate was, he must have been hung like a horse. Could have fit an entire fleet up her—”

“That’s enough, Private,” Solomon sharply interrupts.

Daly flinches at his tone, glancing at him in surprise. Even Wilkes and Hedges seem taken back.

Before any of them can fill the awkward silence, the boatswain announces from the aft of the lower deck the names of the next watch, and Solomon is spared having to explain himself when he hears his name. He spares one more glance to Heather as he stands.

Heather gives him a small smile, something like relief in the depths of his eyes.

***

The surgeons do what they can for Heather, which — admittedly — is next to nothing. They put up a curtain to hide the gaping hole in his skull, the cauterized edges of it blistering and raw.

The creature could have attacked any of them, Solomon reasons with himself, but the weight of responsibility lies heavy on his shoulders as he sits at Heather’s bedside and keeps vigil. A nasty, terrible part of him, wishes that the creature targeted a different Marine, one of the less experienced and more boisterous lads. He stamps the thought down, immediately hating himself for it.

Unlike his other boys, though, Heather would have been the one to comfort, to join him in the sickbay, distracting him from worry or diverting his mind from any self-blame.

Instead, Heather is silent, his eyes pinned shut with candle wax, and Solomon must swallow the urge to scream.

Boards creak at the door to the sickbay, and Solomon looks over his shoulder to see Lieutenant Little hovering. Solomon bites the inside of his cheek to keep from frowning and starts to stand.

“Please, don’t,” Little hurries to say, holding up a hand, “sergeant.”

Solomon stays seated, turning back to Heather with a murmured, “Sir.”

Little asks how he is doing. He does not specify which man is the recipient of his concern, and Solomon doesn’t care to give an answer either way. Aside from the doctors, Little is the only senior officer to check on either Solomon or Heather.

There is added weight on his shoulder when Little rests his palm there, squeezing in a way that he likely means to be comforting. Solomon stares at the gloved hand and then up to Little who, with a light blush gracing his cheeks, removes his hand. He looks at a loss for words, but the conflict in his faces eases when Solomon nods at him, unable to quite smile but grimacing enough to acknowledge Little’s sympathy.

Little stands by his side for a short few minutes, both of them staring at Heather’s comatose body. Little watches Solomon as he fidgets with Heather’s shirt and holds his hand, more a comfort to himself than the injured man.

Eventually, without another word, Little pats his shoulder again and leaves him, and after a second’s hesitation, Solomon turns to watch him go.

***

The next time he and Little speak privately comes in the middle of the night.

The red-eyed and morose lieutenant wakes Solomon from his hammock, where he had retired a short hour earlier. Solomon grumbles but pulls on enough clothes to not freeze his bollocks off as he follows Little to the orlop, guided by the dim light of the lantern in Little’s hands.

He stops in a cold, damp corner where they are hidden from the nearby ladder.

Little looks exhausted, as he well should be, taking on the role of acting commander while Crozier locks himself away in his cabin. Grumpy though at being taken from what few hours of sleep he gets, Solomon hugs his arms around himself and waits for Little to speak.

“How do you do it?” Little’s voice trembles.

“Do what, sir?”

“Rally the men. Be a leader to them.”

Solomon frowns at him. “And you’re not? You’re the first lieutenant. The men listen to you.”

“To my face, yes, but they don’t trust me. And how can I blame them? What with the captain—”

He stops, his honest face collapsing into the deep lines around his mouth and brow. Bent into himself, Little looks strangely small in the depths of his great coat, and Solomon feels enough pity to go to him.

What happens next, neither man holds himself accountable. It is easy to write off; Solomon, because of the loss of Heather’s companionship; Little, for the sudden duty thrust upon his shoulders. In their defense, it is terribly cold, and nowhere in the Articles does it forbid giving one’s shipmate a helping hand, down his trousers or clasped on the back of his neck.

They are quick about it, and it is over in minutes, their mingled breath hot, their sticky hands wiped on handkerchiefs. It may not be the comfort Little originally sought from him, but Solomon has given it nevertheless.

It is Solomon who leaves this time, not before he curls an affectionate knuckle under Little’s jaw, running his thumb along Little’s chin. Little sighs raggedly, his eyes searching Solomon’s face, but neither man speaks again. The only sounds reverberating between Solomon’s ears as he climbs the ladder and crawls back into his hammock are the lieutenant’s choked moans when he spilled in his hand.

***

They fuck several times more, each encounter as furtive and rushed as the last, and Solomon vaguely wonders if the threat of death looming over their heads takes away any fear at being caught. He knows that he is the one risking the most, because he is just a marine and Little the first lieutenant, even if it was Little who instigated this tryst of theirs.

He also cannot deny himself how sharp the pleasure is in his belly when he has the lieutenant stretched out beneath him, quietly begging him for more, his words often lost in the blankets of his bed.

He would have gone after an officer sooner if he had realized how enjoyable the space of a private berth is, or how the luxuries afforded the second-in-command compel most of the crew to cast a blind eye on their behavior or on Little’s high regard for Solomon.

One night, they indulge for a few seconds and lie chest-to-chest in the narrow space, Solomon’s head tucked neatly under Little’s chin, as they catch their breath and the sweat cools on their skin. Solomon runs his nails against Little's chest, on what small expanse of skin he can reach through the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. Little hums his appreciation at the scratches, obviously enjoying the sensation.

Solomon pauses when he catches a glimpse of a mark, so dark red that it appears black like a tattoo. It is in the vague shape of a bird, located directly beneath Little’s nipple.

He taps a finger on Little’s shirt, directly above the tattoo.

“I didn’t think it was genteel for officers to mark themselves up,” he jokes, leaning up onto his chin.

The humor is lost on Little whose face goes blank as he twists away and hurriedly buttons his shirt. Solomon sits up with him, the discomfort between them tangible enough to cut. He starts to say something else, some vapid question about morning watch, anything to divert Little’s attention back to him.

“That will be all, sergeant,” Little swiftly cuts him short.

The dismissal stings, and as much as Solomon wants to ball his jacket into his hands so that he may sooner storm off, he yanks his clothes and boots on, his elbows brushing against Little’s shoulders where he sits at his desk, pointedly ignoring Solomon.

He pauses at the door, tossing a chilly “Sleep well, sir” over his shoulder before he leaves the cabin and hurries down the narrow hallway, avoiding stewards and officers alike.

***

He has another opportunity to look upon the soul-sign on Heather’s chest when he dresses him for Carnivale. Solomon thought it appropriate to bathe the man before dressing him in his uniform, though he knows that wiping Heather’s limbs and chest with a damp cloth hardly constitutes as a bath.

The mystery of the soul-sign kindles Solomon’s curiosity like a hot flame, how the mark must have appeared on Heather’s skin during their voyage. As he thinks to his own liaison with Little, Solomon realizes — too late, always too late — that he and Heather might have shared a common trait in their choice of bed partners.

As he buttons Heather’s shirt over the mark, he buries the spark of jealousy that rises in his chest, for the recipient of Heather’s wholehearted affection or, his brain cruelly reminds him, whoever nabbed Lieutenant Little with the small bird-shaped mark. He envies Heather’s conviction that the soul-signs were something to treasure, as he has yet to see anything good come from them.

Solomon uses his fingers to smooth Heather’s hair and his whiskers, feeling a sudden lump in his throat as he covers the hole in Heather’s head with the paper crown.

***

Loneliness and grief rise in Solomon’s chest like a disease during the oppressively quiet hours of the night, and when he finally gives in to his needs, his feet carry him like a sleepwalker’s trance to Little’s door. Despite the time of night, Little lies awake in his berth, and rather than being surprised by Solomon’s arrival, he sits up with something like relief.

From the bed, he fumbles with matches to light a candle.

Solomon starts to hiss a warning that someone might see the light, but when the yellow glow hits Little’s face, accentuating the deep crescents under his eyes and the droop to his mouth, Solomon finds that he cannot scold him.

Little mumbles an apology, casting a doleful look up at Solomon through his eyelashes. Solomon realizes that the lieutenant has not dressed for bed. He is still wearing his trousers and waistcoat, the clothing rumpled horrendously.

Something rends inside Solomon, between pity and affection, and he steps across the narrow space to embrace him. Little stays seated as he wraps his arms around Solomon’s middle and buries his face in his stomach. His hands tug at Solomon’s coat to pull him down onto the bed with him.

He kisses Solomon, which he never has done in their times together.

At first, Solomon tenses in his arms, before he closes his eyes and relaxes against him. For a blessed few seconds, he can forget the tragedy of the expedition and Carnivale, and he clutches at Little through the layers of broadcloth.

Were they to follow the normal rhythm of their rendezvous, Little would already have his trousers to his knees and his back pressed to Solomon’s chest, but tonight, they are slow, letting their mouths meet and their hands wander, with a tenderness much like true lovers. The idea is ridiculous, but Solomon feels sentimental tonight.

He slides a knee between Little’s thighs and pushes him to lie back against the bed. He uses the new angle to his advantage as he presses their hips together.

Little gasps as he breaks the kiss and pushes at Solomon’s shoulders.

“Wait, not yet,” he says in a whisper.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Solomon’s heart leaps to his throat when Little looks at him, the telltale signs of tears in his eyes.

“I need to know,” he murmurs, looking away when his face contorts. He breathes deeply, looking back at Solomon once he is composed again. “This may be an odd request, but I lit the candle so that I may better see you. And I…want to see you. All of you.”

He almost laughs at the request, the solemnity with which Little presents it, but whatever lies unspoken beneath Little’s fear compels Solomon to disrobe. Once he stands bare before Little, he feels strange under the weight of Little’s gaze.

“Do you like what you see, sir?” he says with no wasted amount of cheek, in an attempt to dissuade some of the heaviness in the room.

Little reaches a hand to Solomon’s chest, lying his palm flat against his beating heart, where his skin is pale and unblemished.

In a terribly small voice, Little says, “I do.”

***

“Should I be jealous, Solomon?” Hickey’s voice drawls as sugary sweet as honey.

The pair of them lie naked on the bedroll, despite the pervasive cold outside their tent.

Solomon snorts at the question, pushing Hickey’s hand away from where it draws a pattern on his back between his shoulder blades.

“Of what?” he asks, humoring the bizarre question.

“Of whoever I’m stealing you from, of course,” Hickey blithely replies.

Solomon freezes, like an animal caught in the sights of a hunter’s rifle. The touch of Hickey’s finger to his back is so light that it nearly tickles, but Solomon feels a shiver travel down each of his limbs, unattributable to the cold outside.

When Solomon does not respond, Hickey stops tracing with his finger. He presses against Solomon’s back, his lips hovering by Solomon’s ear and his voice full of a joy that would better befit news that the ships were in sight with leads open in the ice.

“You really don’t know?” he says. “Why, Solomon, you have a soul-sign.”

He tries to keep the sorrow from his voice, the sudden howling shriek of despair; “What does it look like?”

Hickey leans back, his fingers prying at his skin once more.

“A flower,” he says, mockery coating the words. “I never would have taken you for the sentimental type, but the body is always honest, isn’t it, Solomon?”

He yanks away from Hickey, more harshly than perhaps necessary. He doesn’t look at Hickey as he dresses and leaves the tent. He knows Hickey enjoys his anger and doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing it.

***

Little blows out the candle shortly after, and though he does not say otherwise, Solomon is fearful that the lieutenant will ask him to redress and leave.

“Sir?” he asks, his bravado from earlier wilting.

Little laughs, the noise eerily close to a sob, before he reaches blindly for him. Solomon almost speaks up, almost pushes him away. But the heart is lonely, and the body cold. In the darkness, Little makes no complaint as Solomon undoes his buttons and peels away layers upon layers of cloth, until they both lie fully naked on the blankets of Little’s bed.

When Solomon starts to roll him over, Little stops him.

“Not this time.” He holds Solomon’s face in his hands as he lies back, framing Solomon’s hips with his thighs and hooking his ankles to pull him close. Little’s voice is shy, emotion making it thick; “Like this. I want it, like this.”

Solomon seeks his mouth again, moaning when Little eagerly receives the kiss. This angle is awkward, but Little is pliant in Solomon’s hands as he lifts Little’s hips, lines his cock up, and eases into him.

Little gasps, pushing back against Solomon as he clutches his shoulders. Though their time is always limited, Solomon is slow, thrusting into Little shallowly and gently, in a facsimile to love, knowing deep down that tonight will be their last time together, a truth Solomon knew when Little failed to see what he wanted upon Solomon’s skin.

For a moment, Solomon closes his eyes, and the cold slips away. He is in a narrow bed in a set of rooms in Oxbridge, his sweet wife beneath him, her delicate hands holding onto his shoulders. She never died. He never left. They learn to be happy, even without the crushing passion of soulmates, no ink-dark birds over their hearts, no red lilies imprinted on their skin.

The illusion is broken when strong arms pull him close, and Solomon kisses Little once more, his lips brushing against rough stubble before finding his mouth.


End file.
